Fentanyl Passes Heroin as Leading Cause of U.S. Drug Deaths

Drug overdoses killed roughly 64,000 people in the United States last year, according to the first governmental account of nationwide drug deaths to cover all of 2016. It’s a staggering rise of more than 22 percent over the 52,404 drug deaths recorded the previous year — and even higher than The New York Times’s estimate in June, which was based on earlier preliminary data.

Drug overdoses are expected to remain the leading cause of death for Americans under 50, as synthetic opioids — primarily fentanyl and its analogues — continue to push the death count higher. Drug deaths involving fentanyl more than doubled from 2015 to 2016, accompanied by an upturn in deaths involving cocaine and methamphetamine. Together they add up to an epidemic of drug overdoses that is killing people at a faster rate than the H.I.V. epidemic at its peak…

The explosion in fentanyl deaths and the persistence of widespread opioid addiction have swamped local and state resources. Communities say their budgets are being strained by the additional needs — for increased police and medical care, for widespread naloxone distribution and for a stronger foster care system that can handle the swelling number of neglected or orphaned children.

It’s an epidemic hitting different parts of the country in different ways. People are accustomed to thinking of the opioid crisis as a rural white problem, with accounts of Appalachian despair and the plight of New England heroin addicts. But fentanyls are changing the equation: The death rate in Maryland last year outpaced that in both Kentucky and Maine.

Monthly provisional reporting looks like things are only getting worse. Too bad it doesn’t get through to a government more concerned with crushing expanded healthcare for Americans.

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“California to Drug Users: We’ll Pay for You to Test Your Dope : California is taking preventative measures to stop drug users from overdosing on fentanyl, a deadly and high potent synthetic opioid.” https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2018-02-07/california-to-drug-users-well-pay-for-you-to-test-your-dope “In Ohio, nearly 2,500 died from fentanyl and related opioids in 2016, double the number of the year before. …some experts urge caution in using test strips, noting the strategy is still experimental. Sold for a dollar apiece by BTNX Inc., a Canadian company, .they are designed to test urine and have not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use on drug samples, a BTNX spokesman said.